The first time I remember hearing “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,” I was in the nave of All Saints’ Church, St. Andrews. The incense plumed from the thurible while seven lamps shone above the altar in the sanctuary. The grey stones of the church absorbed the light from the old fixtures, lending the room the kind of ambience just about perfect to see the hymnbook and to appreciate the candles and lamps glowing with living fire.
The priest and deacon wrapped the ciborium and wine cruet in white linen and donned liturgical vestments whose name I—to this day—do not know, despite now being a priest myself. The thurifer made his way down the steps while behind him the acolytes carried the candles before the sacrament. As the sacred ministers approached the first row, the people knelt. The pungent frankincense filled the nave. Row by row we knelt as the body and blood of Christ were carried through the nave to the Lady Chapel, where the sacrament would be reserved during the Watch of Maundy Thursday until Good Friday.
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